To make Chelsea feel better about potentially writing off £30m on Andriy Shevchenko, we look at some of the other big striking flops. Anyone want a 'fox in the box'? Or Sally Gunnell?
ARSENAL
Although there's a case to be made for Jose Antonio Reyes, who never really settled in with the 'bad people' at Highbury, at least the Gunners are likely to recoup most of their quite considerable outlay on the Spaniard. But not so Francis Jeffers, who cost a massive £8m from Everton and scored a grand total of four (count 'em) Premiership goals. Heralded as the 'fox in the box' that Arsenal needed, it's now suspected that Arsene Wenger had had a funny turn the day he sanctioned that move.
Jeffers has since flopped back at Everton (on loan), Charlton (who paid £2.6m too much for him), Rangers (on loan) and Blackburn (who paid exactly the right amount). And people wonder why Wenger doesn't like to buy British...
CHELSEA
Andriy Shevchenko is by no means the first big-money big-name striker to struggle at Chelsea, and he should probably take heart from the fact that Didier Drogba was being dismissed as a £24m flop two years ago and he's now widely regarded as the drog's bollocks.
Other striking stinkers have included Mateja Kezman (somehow Chelsea made a profit), Adrian Mutu (cost of £15.8m plus £13.8m for writing off his contract after he tested positive for cocaine) and George Weah (altogether now...'bloody hell, I'd forgotten he played for Chelsea').
But the award goes to Chris Sutton, a £10m striker back in the days when Chelsea really didn't have £10m to splash out on any old rubbish. And he was rubbish. One Premiership goal for Chelsea and a year later he was sold to Celtic for £6m. And there he found his level.
LIVERPOOL
'Liverpool ruin strikers' is the familiar lament from one F365-er. And he's right. When was the last time Liverpool bought a striker and he didn't end up being a considerably worse player than when he arrived? The jury's out on Peter Crouch and Dirk Kuyt, but they might well be the first to buck a worrying trend.
Let's see - there's Emile Heskey (all £15m of him), Lord Djibril Cisse (£14m and sent out on loan with a broken leg), Milan Baros, El-Hadji Diouf, Jari Litmanen, Stanley Victor Collymore...
But the cherry on the striking pie has to be Fernando Morientes, one of the best strikers in the world and winner of four Champions League medals. And then he came to Liverpool. And he was pants. £6.3m paid for 12 goals in 60 appearances before he was shipped off back to Spain for a fraction of the fee. He's now of course absolutely brilliant again at Valencia. Just what do they do to their strikers?
MANCHESTER UNITED
He's not bad at buying strikers, that Sir Alex fella, it's central midfielders and goalkeepers that cause him most trouble. Think £28m for Juan Veron, £5.9m for Kleberson (he won a World Cup, you know), £3.5m for Eric Djemba-Djemba-Djemba-Djemba and £4.5m for Massimo Taibi.
But there have been a couple of exceptions. We're still stroking our chins about Alan Smith, but there's no question at all when it comes to a certain Diego Forlan, who took a grand total of eight months and 28 games to score his first goal for ManYoo after a £6.9m move.
Forlan might have become a cult hero for goals against Liverpool and for running around with his top off, while collecting a record number of lookalikes suggestions (yes, we know he looks like Sally Gunnell), but he still only scored 17 goals in 95 appearances. Funny how Sir Alex then felt the need to buy Wayne Rooney...
Inevitably, Forlan was then fantastic at Villarreal and shared the Golden Boot with a certain Monsieur Henry the season after he was kicked out of Old Trafford. It seems Sir Alex doesn't get everything right...
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